Page 5 of Forsaken Dream
Chapter Two
Vaser
“Well?” Tyler grumbled from his perch on a tiny wooden chair as soon as I stepped foot in the room of the run-down motel we rented as soon as we arrived in this small town in the middle of nowhere. “Any luck?”
The image of the female with her hourglass curves and perky breasts straining in that thin tank top popped to the front of my mind. Her shapely, muscular legs were bared to my hungry gaze, the globes of her ass covered in shorts with just enough fabric to drive a male insane. In this day and age, a female’s shorts looked more like underwear than actual clothing—not that I complained. Tendrils of lavender hair had escaped the ponytail and were sticking to her neck and the side of her angelic face, making me want to tuck them behind her ears. And those pink pillow lips? I imagined those wrapping around my cock while they were spitting venom every time she spoke to me.
“I’m not sure I would call it luck, my friend,” I answered him, kicking off the boots and sprawling over the second wooden chair, which groaned under my weight.
Tyler and I met when a seer told me if I wanted to find my mate, I needed to visit two destinations. One was New York City. That’s where I found the gargoyle, and after two drinks he confessed the same seer guided him to the pub. I didn’t question why out of everyone in that place I chose to sit next to him. Fate? Probably.
After comparing the stories she told us, we both realized we were headed to the same place, most probably to find the same mate. For me, it wasn’t unheard of to have a shared mate. For demons, it was a common thing since females are few and far between. The gargoyle, however, raged about my comment for three days before he begrudgingly accepted his fate. Who knew the stony fucks had only one mate and were greedy bastards that had never heard of sharing? I was looking forward to fucking with him if we did end up having to share. Maybe he would be able to get the stick stuck up his ass out then..
However, if I was honest with myself, I’d thought the seer had lied. As a matter of fact, I was certain she had led us astray. I’d been about to tell Tyler we needed to go our separate ways when I’d caught the most tantalizing scent that had graced my nose in hundreds of years.
It led me to the farmers market.
To her.
The moment I set my eyes on her, I knew she was the one, although for the life of me I couldn’t tell what breed she was. One thing was certain: she was not human. Oh, she looked human as fuck, and there was no way to tell she was anything but. Yet … no human could muddle the brain of an incubus with just the tone of her voice. If there was water nearby, I would’ve bet my life that she was a siren luring me to my death, and I would’ve willingly accepted it with a bright smile on my face. Even while angry, the musical, husky tones felt like a physical caress under my skin. Like a youngling, I had to hide my lower body with the table housing all the jars so she didn’t see my cock straining against the zipper of my jeans.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The male jumped from his perch, the chair toppling back as he clenched his fists and loomed over me. “Did you find her or not?”
“Oh, I found her alright.” Giving him a lazy smile just because I knew it’d piss him off, I stretched both arms over my head.
“Did she say something?” A muscle ticked in his square jaw and I could tell he was poised to pounce on me and beat me to a pulp if I didn’t spill the beans. My name would not be Vaser if I didn’t rise to the occasion to needle the gargoyle.
“She farted.”
“What?” Tyler’s bellow bounced off the thin walls of the room, and someone shouted “Shut up” from further down the hall.
I grinned.
“She farted.” Shrugging a shoulder, I reached for the bags of fast-food he got from somewhere, rummaging through them until I found the fries. Popping one in my mouth, I chewed it slowly just to let him stew a little more. “She also told me to take a hike. A feisty one, brother. This is going to be so much fun.”
“I am not your brother, demon,” Tyler snarled. “What do you mean she farted? What is she? A troll?” His large body visibly shivered at that. “The fates cannot be that cruel.”
Almost choking on the damn fry, I had to pound my chest to dislodge it before I died of oxygen deprivation. Wiping tears from my eyes as soon as I calmed down, I popped another one in my mouth. Chewing on the greasy fry, I eyed him, debating how much I wanted to rile him up. The truth was, a lot. One look at his bare chest and tree-trunk arms where his skin was turning from caramel to grey told me he was close to unleashing his true form. Maybe I should give him a break, unless I wanted to deal with the humans when he started raging and breaking this building apart. Cleaning out the salt that was stuck to my fingers on my leg, I straightened in my chair.
“Calm down before we have to clean up the damage you do, will ya? She’s not a troll.” Her face floated again in my mind’s eye, springing my cock to attention just when I thought I’d get a break. It was going to be long few days before I could do anything about it, at least if her attitude was anything to go by. “You’ll meet her tomorrow.”
“You arranged a meeting?” Tyler’s voice sounded like grinding rocks, but at least his skin was a normal color again. Small steps with the aggressive fuck. Unlike him, I was a lover, not a fighter.
“We are going for an interview.” At his confused face, I snickered. “She is looking for a helping hand for her farm. She said the position was filled, but even a human could smell the lie from miles away. She was trying to shake me off.” Pointing a finger at him and then at myself, my smile only grew. “We are all the helping hands she needs.”
A thoughtful look crossed his face before he nodded. “It’s a good plan. All you had to do was say that when you walked in. You didn’t have to make up crap about farting.” As if he could smell the horrible stench from hours ago, his features twisted in a grimace.
“Oh, that was not a lie.” Standing up as well, I started pacing, everything in me telling me to go to her instead of wasting time here. “Maybe she was just nervous? Some people have a nervous stomach, you know. Plus, it’s a natural reaction of the body. Maybe she indulged in fried beans for lunch.”
“Something is not right.” He looked twitchy, which was unlike him. The time I’d spent around the gargoyle had taught me one thing: Tyler was the calmest person I’d ever met. True to his original form that the humans loved to carve on some of their buildings, the male could sit in one spot unblinking for days if I didn’t talk to him.
“It’s natural to fart,” I pointed out again, but he slashed the air with his hand to silence me.
“Not that.” His fingers went to the center of his chest where he rubbed circles. My skin prickled when he touched the same spot where uneasiness clawed at me, as well. “I wouldn’t feel urgency like this if something wasn’t up. We should go to her now,” he said more to himself than me.
“If you met her, you’d know we would just make things harder for ourselves if we popped in uninvited tonight.” The fact that we were going there tomorrow morning uninvited was not lost on me, but I had a plan.
Everything in me was telling me to listen to Tyler and get to my mate as fast as I could, but remembering the fire in her beautiful eyes and the stubborn tilt of her chin forced me to reason with him. “I’m not sure what she is yet, and there is a possibility she doesn’t understand the mate bond. Do you really want to show up at her door and scare her?”
